Flu Safety At The Nail Salon

When we settled into a chair at the nail salon last weekend, the first thing the manicurist did was to apply a generous dollop of Purell to her hands and ours. That's smart, we figured--and wondered whether manicures have any other flu season implications. Philip M. Tierno, the director of clinical microbiology and immunology at New York University Langone Medical Center, and the author of The Secret Life of Germs: What They Are, Why We Need Them, and How We Can Protect Ourselves Against Them, says nail treatments themselves aren't inherently dangerous. "You're probably not communicating anything via the process itself," he said. "It's the close connection between you and the person that's performing that task. They've performed manicures on many individuals, and you are, in a sense, exposed to all of them."

To deal with the risks, Tierno recommends avoiding anyone who's obviously sick; trying for a less-crowded place (so think about an off-peak time, if your schedule allows it); and, in general, washing your hands thoroughly (15 to 20 seconds of scrubbing) as often as you can. When you don't have access to soap and water, a squirt of hand sanitizer also works well, as long as it has at least 62 percent alcohol.